Then we heard from a researcher at Manchester Metropolitan University who says that if you teach inmates about philosophy, they will become vicars when they are released. And open a home for injured kittens.

For three months, she has toured the nation’s prisons teaching inmates about Plato’s ideal society, stoicism among ancient Greeks and how Socrates used the “dialectic method of inquiry by discussion”.

I bet after half an hour, most of the lags had decided they’d rather be in the showers with Omar The Strangler.

But no. The egghead says that as a result of her work, one man went on to study for an A Level in “critical thinking”.
One. That’s the critical figure here.

What a roar deal

SO, Britain’s last lion tamer, Thomas Chipperfield has had his licence revoked and now there will be no more big cats in any of the country’s circuses.

What’s more, animal enthusiasts are endlessly calling for all of the nation’s zoos to be closed down, saying it’s cruel to keep a creature in a spacious cage where drugs, food and sex are constantly on tap.

Better, they say, for them to be released into the wild, where they can be torn apart by wolves and hyenas.

The problem is that when that happens, the only way our children will be able to see these magnificent creatures is by taking them on a safari in Africa.